Can we get better at producing nature's medicines in the laboratory?

Humans have always sought medicines in nature in the form of natural substances from plants, fungi and bacteria. Today, new ones are still being added.

New natural substances must be investigated for their possibilities, i.e. whether they can be used to advantage in medicine. This means that researchers investigate the bioactivity of the substances, which is the effect a substance has on living organisms. 

But before you can do that, there must be sufficiently large amounts of a given natural substance available to the researchers.

Therefore, the natural substances are produced in a laboratory, and there are several advantages to this.

»One of the most important advantages is that we as chemists can do one thing that nature cannot. We can vary the structure of these natural substances a little bit, which can have a very big impact on their bioactivity,« explains Jonas Faghtmann, Postdoc at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Germany, and continues:

»For example, you sometimes isolate a natural substance that has some immediately desired bioactivity, but which is very toxic. This is where we as chemists may be able to modify the structure so that we can reduce the toxic property of the molecule and at the same time maintain the desired bioactivity.«

Driven by a passion for hardcore organic synthesis

With support from Independent Research Fund Denmark, Jonas Faghtmann will carry out a two-year project in which he produces natural substances in new ways using catalysis with many hours in the laboratory. In other words, a chemical process in which a substance drives the process without being part of the reaction itself.

The hope is that he can establish flexible and efficient synthesis strategies for selected natural substances. This gives access to the natural substances, and some of them can be chemically altered so that they acquire the desired properties.

The research has a broad perspective, but the work is also based on a personal fascination.

»As a chemist, I find many of the structures that are isolated from nature fascinating. I look at it and think that it is a strange molecule, and then I want to make it. It is driven by a passion for organic chemistry and hardcore organic synthesis,« says Jonas Faghtmann.

He conducts his research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in the German Ruhr District. Here he is part of the research group of Professor Alois Fürstner.

Research can help the chemical industry to a green transition

The insights from the project will benefit the surrounding community.

»Catalysis is hugely important for the green transition of the chemical industry. So, these will be competencies that can be used as a society. In addition, experience with natural substance synthesis and bioactive molecules and their properties is useful in the life science industry. Especially in Denmark, where we have quite a lot of it,« says Jonas Faghtmann.

The research project also serves as a possible direct source of the natural substances and chemically modified versions of them. 

The Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung collaborates with a number of players in the pharmaceutical industry and academia who can use the natural substances produced by Jonas Faghtmann in the laboratory for further research.